name me a christian/western country where islam is illegal ? there are none.
Yet in some muslim countries it is illegal to be any religion other than islam, i think here lies the difference in views between the west and the
muslims.
That's not technically true, I'm pretty sure. You're probably thinking of the Kingdom's disdain for Christianity, but it's not illegal. You
can't practice it publically, you can't advertise it, you can't do outreach or charity work, and you definitely can't go door to door trying to
convert people like folks do in America. So, the environment is obviously very restrictive, but other religions aren't illegal, they're actually
just regulated by local laws.
On topic, the stink of fear is in the air, all around. Everyone's baring their teeth and making noise because they feel threatened by the crush of
contradictory worlds. Meanwhile, while this macro-tragedy boils, each individual international player is struggling with real domestic issues, real
issues with real consequences. Mostly poverty, rapid (practically tectonic) class separation, civil rights, and education. We choose it for
ourselves though.
Nobody ever took your choice away, or mine or anyone else's. But..we make the choices we do based on the information we have available to us. Most
people in the world make their decisions based on very little information at all, considering the contrast provided by those who essentially swim in
an ocean of it, day in and day out.
Unrest occurs in direct inverse proportion to the education and literacy level of the general population, and I think that goes for just about any
social group you care to check. Schools, neighborhoods, playgrounds, countries, and so on. Educated, informed people make better decisions, so if a
group of people are making more 'bad' decisions overall, there's a good chance it's because they're comparitively uneducated - or as is the case
in some places, counter-educated.
When a religion controls a government, psyops takes on a frightening aspect. Some of what we're seeing stems from that I think.
I guess the short answer would be,
I think the rioting muslims are like any other group of rioters. When people are living happy, comfortable,
secure lives, they don't run amuk and burn things down. The same things that are wrong there are wrong here. In most cases the things are more
wrong there, issues like unemployment and class separation are bad in America, but they're quite a bit worse in the communities where the recent
rioting has been taking place.
Two real things:
With fifty dollars and a couple of bicycles you could organize a riot in pretty much any city with enough homeless and/or jobless people. (He says to
a rallying cry of remember Ukraine)
We've got a lot more sedatives and drugs in our diet than they do in any of the places where rioting has broken out, that might just have something
to do with it. Syrians are warming up to the Colonels chicken though, so it's only a matter of time before they're docile as the birds they're
eating. You can't go running about with RPGS, hurling rocks all day, jumping into embassy windows if your cholesterol is through the roof and even
eating makes you sweat.
[edit on 7-2-2006 by WyrdeOne]